understand the architecture

Always why do they understand the basics? Then work accordingly. Yes! With out Base nothing can be done. Like wise joomla has an Architecture and every programmer should learn the architecture before they start. It is very important!
There are plenty of tutorials and books available for learning joomla. Let me give some of my resource.
http://docs.joomla.org/
http://www.joomlatutorials.com/

Start learning and acquire knowledge! let us rock with joomla.